For Sophie Gray’s best cherry tips and tricks, go to In season with Food magazine: cherries.
Ingredients
Method
Preheat oven to 175°C. Cover a baking sheet with non-stick baking paper.
Beat egg whites to soft peaks. Gradually beat in caster sugar a spoonful at a time until completely dissolved. Add vanilla; fold in vinegar and cornflour; lightly fold in half the cocoa.
Spoon meringue onto prepared tray to form a rectangle approximately 22 x 32cm, keeping the swirling peaked mounds as much as possible. Dust lightly with remaining cocoa.
Reduce oven to 100°C. Cook pavlova for 1 hour 30 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave to cool completely (you can leave it overnight in the oven).
Slide a spatula under the pavlova to release it from the baking paper and slide gently onto a serving platter.
Make the Cherry syrup and Coffee cream (see below). Spoon the Coffee cream on top, drizzle with cooled Cherry syrup and scatter with grated chocolate or chocolate curls and a few extra fresh cherries.
Cherry syrup
Place 400g of cherries and water in a small saucepan, bring to a gentle simmer until cherries are tender but still holding their shape. Scoop out 1 tablespoon of juice and cool. Whisk cornflour into the cooled juice, pour back into the pan, then simmer until beginning to gel. Remove from heat and cool.
Coffee cream
Place cream and coffee in a bowl, whip to soft peaks; add icing sugar to taste and whisk to firm peaks.
Make sure the sugar in the meringue is completely dissolved; beat until you can’t feel granules when you rub a dab of mixture between your thumb and forefinger. You can use frozen cherries in the cherry syrup if wanting to make this outside of cherry season.
Note
